MoveOn.org yesterday released the results from a straw poll it conducted among 42,882 members that watched an online town hall gathering on Iraq among the Democratic presidential contenders Monday. The winners: Barack Obama and John Edwards. [A fully tally is below]. The poll confirms what many pundits suspect -- Obama and Edwards are strong performers among the party's liberal base, in large part because of their positions on Iraq. Obama spoke out against going into Iraq before the war began and Edwards has apologized for his 2002 vote to authorize force in the country and wants a pullout by the end of 2008. Obama is urging a pullout by mid-'08. Just below them in the poll is Dennis Kucinich, while Hillary Clinton, who has been dogged by her insistence that she won't apologize for her 2002 vote giving President Bush the go-ahead to invade the country, is far back.

Clinton, oddly enough, may well view the MoveOn results with glee. She's spent years in the Senate polishing an image that she is a centrist Democrat who is strong on defense. And she probably realizes that if she caters to the left-wing of the party on Iraq, she faces an incredibly tough road to election in the general.

The MoveOn event, which the organization says attracted more than 1,000 groups to gather around the country to listen in, is the first of three it is conducting this year. It's worth checking out the candidate's responses here. Next comes town halls on health care and global warming.